Comments

Tim, I have been reading about the horrifying razing of the houses between North and May Street, from Agricola and Robie. The reason the Steel group is allowed to do it is because of the zoning. Most houses would be zoned R-1 and would have to have application to change their zoning to be turned into a parking lot. In that neighborhood, when it was first conceived, the zoning was different, allowing both commercial and residential development, because they didn’t know what would be built there at the time. After mostly housing was built and was there for decades, the zoning difference, that should have been changed by the city, was forgotten. Steel had to have found out about this and stayed quiet about it, buying properties covertly until they had enough to destroy a community with nothing legal to stop them. They aren’t even decommissioning the streets and sidewalks for the parking lot, so no one can touch them that way. There is a zone map going around, that you should get a hold of, because there are other areas zoned this way and if the Steel group gets away with this, others will try the same thing.The city needs to fix this now so it can’t happen again. It’s not totally in the bag, a few of the residents are holding out, including two on May street, the small antiques store and I was told the vet hadn’t sold over yet either. I suspect they are being bullied, but I can’t prove it. I’m pretty sure The Ecology Action Centre are. I get their fear and inaction from before, after 10 years of Harper, they needed to be careful, but things federally have changed. They are scared now (I was talking to one fellow on Saturday evening from the EAC, that’s how I know who hasn’t sold yet) they fear doing more than just being seen to host the group that opposes the Steel group, they’ve been told if they do more their funding will be pulled and their non profit status taken away. It would be a good thing to see who has been doing it, who can back up that threat so effectively they are staying out of it. I still wonder how 22 demolition licences for the same streets can be issued without raising any concerns anywhere. Isn’t everything supposed to be digitized so this can’t happen? And most of the development that has gone on isn’t good. Just destroying things to replace them with others isn’t good, crap work or not. We don’t need the development that is going on. There has been multiple studies that pointed out we already have enough business/commercial development now to sustain us for 25 years, we don’t need more. Ditto for those high priced condos. No one wants them, nit even to rent. The whole thing will be a mess all the citizens of this city responsibility when all the developers go bankrupt from their buildings, as they do all the time (it’s why condo guarantees aren’t worth the paper they are printed on) move away and do it again, leaving us with all the expense of them, and a council who has moved on, some to other work, not caring that their only advocating for the people who paid for their campaigns will hurt the rest of us hugely. After all, there is no way to hold council responsible, right? The only thing that isn’t being build is lower income affordable housing, and ordinary housing with good transit access to our city, some of which the Steel group are currently destroying. It’s frustrating. I wonder if the city realizes how much property tax they will be forgoing with all those properties destroyed. a parking lot will not bring in anywhere near that in income for the city. Who picks up the money they are saying goodbye to? The rest of us? And if others do as they do, the problem will be worse. What’s needed, the only thing that can be done is a huge and very public boycott of the Steel group, their Colonial Honda dealership and anything else that they are involved in and the boycott needs to be long term, no matter what happens. It needs to be picked up by not just all the online media but the tv media as well, enlisting all the citizens in the province and all those from here that moved away, to put pressure on the Steel group by advocating that not just they but their friends and family will never buy from Steel. A big cut in profits is the only thing these people understand, and so it never happens ago. How do you do this? Thanks for listening Tim. Sincerely, Melannie Burke

Hi Tim, it’s Sunday, June 5th and I know your team have been writing on our not so wonderful bus system. I just wanted to keep you in the loop about how much weirder our Saturday bus service is getting. Apparently, because of the bridge closures every weekend, the buses have been taking a long time to get round to where they should start out , on Barrington st. at the bridge. the number 1 is supposed to have been the worst of all and starting yesterday, and for every Saturday thereafter, the people who organize transit have come up with a solution that is supposed to make things better. They are now running a number 1 with the route chopped into two parts. You get the no. 1 at the Dartmouth bridge terminal on Saturdays and it will take you only as far as Scotia Square, no further. Then everyone gets thrown off, and they are made to wait for a second no. 1 that goes only from Scotia Square to Mumford and back to Scotia Square. I had this experience yesterday and I know it was the first day because I was on the no.1 with 3 bus drivers (the one driving and two riding back over to Halifax) at about 1:50 p.m. yesterday. They were talking about this being put in and yesterday being the first day, this supposed to make things so much better. It didn’t. Passengers waited and another no.1 didn’t come for 7 minutes. Then it stayed at Scotia Square for 15 extra minutes, making it very late, because it had to wait for the next connecting bus from Dartmouth! When it left, it left with two other no. 1’s starting out exactly 2 minutes before it and with two number 1’s following in the next minute and a half! (I timed it as I walked on Coburg!) Not exactly the measure of efficiency! It took me almost an hour and a half to get from Portland St. by Maynard lake to Coburg Road at King’s College! (partly because the no. 61 Bridge at 1:35, which only goes once an hour on weekends, didn’t go to Halifax as a 14 like it always does, as it was supposed to, but stopped at the Bridge Terminal and set everyone off to get another bus.Now this lovely system on Saturdays won’t affect the 10 or the 61/14, they will still go route on detour, just the no.1. Bizarre, eh? Just thought you’d want to be in the loop.